last days last days – another cultural landslide‘s first full-bore album since 2009 – will be released on September 16, 2013.

Yes.

We have a set release date.

You can stop laughing now.

It’s really coming out on September 16th.

More importantly, if you know us, acl announcing a release date is a radical departure from how we’ve done things; in the past, when we’d finish an album, EP or song, we’d look at each other, say “Are we done?” – and if we both nodded our heads “yes,” we’d post it in one of our secret cubbyholes for you to find. No announcements or hoopla – just “Psst – here’s something new.”

And we always gave it away for free. (And, by the way, our music will always be free.)

So, announcing an actual release date? That’s pretty weird.

Want something weirder?

For the first time ever, we’re actively going to promote the hell out of this album.

(Yeah, that one kind of shocks us, too. We as a rule don’t promote our stuff.)

So why are we stepping so far outside our comfort zone with last days last days?

Because another cultural landslide has always been One Big Goofy Experiment.

Let’s be honest – we’re just two goobers with a weird way of looking at things, who just happen to work in a band that’s run by a cat. (That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Besides, we have the scars to prove it.) Making that kind of an insane public statement immediately allowed us to be discounted by everybody – which also immediately freed us to do whatever the hell we wanted.

Sometimes being ignored is a blessing: our weird anonymous outsider band status gave us a safe refuge to be with each other, do our weird-ass thing and shut out the rest of the insanity around us without any expectations. We were just happy to make music with each other, whether it was for ourselves or for other people’s use. And hey, we’ve done pretty okay by that on all counts…

And hell, we’ve always gone way out of our way to push the envelope & do things differently – going as far as creating a rigid set of rules, chock-full of self-destruct triggers so that there would be no possible way for us to compromise what we stated we wanted to do – putting the music we create First – in an experiment to see just what the hell would happen…

… and last days last days was our big experiment to see what would happen if we allowed everything we’d put in place to go to its logical conclusion.

We didn’t expect what happened.

Because we didn’t make this album.

This album made Us.

We have never taken ourselves seriously – but by ceding full control of this album over to the music, making last days last days focused us in a way we’d never known before. We had no idea where the music came from, or how the lyrics came to be. We didn’t think. At all. We just… Did it.

It honed us, relentlessly directing our every move. It carved us – sometimes rather painfully. It possessed us. It drove us like an Iditarod dog team. Sometimes we would look at one another & wonder where the living hell an idea came from. (We never found a satisfactory answer for that question.) If we tried to force something, the whole process would grind to a standstill. It wanted what It wanted and It was going to get what It wanted. Or Else. Things only went smoothly when we got out of the way.

The whole damned experience was spooky weird.

In the end, this album also finished itself, demanding that we relearn every process we knew to deliver exactly what it wanted – or it would never finish itself.

And one day last month, It finally finished itself.

The last thing It wanted: push it out to the world.

And after living through four years of something we still can’t explain, we know better than to get in Its way.

So, two weeks from now, last days last days gets released everywhere. For Free.

We have no expectations.

We only hope you enjoy it…

… because, amazingly, after listening to it – we believe in what this album has to say.

We’refinally close enough to releasing last days last days that it’stime for us to start revealing our secret plans.

And they may surprise you. (And we’ll tell you about them very, very soon.)

But to understand the weird things we’re about to do, it might help to understand Why We Do What We Do.

(We’ve been doing this stuff for over a decade – but we felt it might be important to finally restate our intentions clearly – once and for all. )

Backstory:

Both kirk and wendy were classically trained musicians.

We both went to prestigious music schools.

And we both hated our musical education with an absolute passion.

What we experienced was a cookie-cutter approach to music – a way of thinking about music that was totally foreign to the organic creation & performance of music as we both felt it. You were required to work within one particular genre only. A particular instrument was designed to be used in only one type of music. Maintain the status quo. Don’t push the envelope.

Bullshit.

After a few years of this crap, we left the world of music behind us, thinking that making music really wasn’t supposed to be a part of our lives…

… but then upon re-meeting each other decades later, we fell back into making music almost instantly – this time with a renewed vigor. It wasn’t that we wanted to make music with each other – we had to make music with each other…

And this time around, it was going to be Different.

We were going to do what we wanted to do: not what was socially acceptable, not what was culturally expected – and we were not going to do it in the same way as anyone else. We wanted the music that came from us to be a living thing – even if it ended up looking like the baby from “It’s Alive.” (What the hell. It had cute claws.)

This time out, there was going to be No Bullshit Allowed. And we would do it outside the standard music ecosystem.

So. we created:

The another cultural landslide 7 + 7 Philosophy

First, we created seven rules for how we’d make music:

1)The Music Must Always Comes First. We serve the music – the music doesn’t serve us. When we walk into the studio, whatever comes out, comes out. We plan nothing – not themes, not lyrics, nothing. It comes together on its own, by itself – and that’s what it is. Which leads to the second rule:

2)Music is a journey, and never a destination. We don’t know what it will sound like until we get there. No boundaries. No genre. Just music. We will not be pigeon-holed.

3) We will never think about what we make. We will just do it.

4) No egos. That crap just gets in the way of making music and connecting with anyone who would like to hear our music. This translates into acl being a lower case band, with no last names – just kirk & wendy – and no band pictures. (Besides, MzKitty’s own oversized ego would never allow that. And yes, our manager is a cat. A very mean-ass Cat.)

5) If we’ve done it before, we won’t do it again. (That would be boring.) And that’s why all of our songs sound so different from each other – because every song must be different. If a new song we’re working on starts sounding like something else we’ve done, we throw it out. (We have a large musical graveyard.)

6) Music is a gift to be shared (it saved our lives, literally), so we will always give away the music we make For Free. The sole exception to this rule would be music commissioned & created for a specific purpose (what the hell, that way we could buy more stuff to make more music) – but even then, a lot of the time we’ll give that music away, too.

7) Most Importantly: We Refuse To Take Ourselves Seriously. We don’t make art. We make music. And music should be fun – and when it stops being fun, we’ll stop. Period.

That “stopping” part in that last rule got us thinking. We’re married – and crazy in love with each other – so we decided to make seven more rules: these would be operational rules with built-in self-destruct mechanisms to protect what we treasured most – each other:

1) If it starts to screw up our marriage, We Stop.

2) If it starts to feel like an obligation, We Stop.

3) It must always be fun;even if we’re creating some totally dark & gloomy work, it must always be fun to create. If we no longer have fun creating, We Stop.

4) If by some astronomically fat chance we became successful at making music to the point it would require us to build an organization to maintain it, We Stop.

5)In fact,if we can’t do it by ourselves, We Stop. (The only exceptions to this rule are in areas we truly, truly suck at – like art & websites – because let’s face it… we suck at art, and we really suck at web design.)

6) Our music must always be honest and from the heart. If we hear a cash register starting to sneak its way into a piece of music, we throw the piece out. If all we hear are cash registers, We Stop Entirely.

7) Once we release our music, our goal is to connect with each individual listener as an Individual. To encourage them to create. To encourage them to grow. To encourage them to think. To give them hope. If we can’t do that, We Stop.

We’ve lived by these rules for over 10 years now – and we’re not going to stop.

So why is it important that we’re telling you these rules?

These aren’t just the rules we live by.

These are our promises to You.

You are not a Wallet. You are not a Consumer. You are not a “fan,” or a part of our “fanbase.” We refuse to buy into that leftover 20th Century horseshit thinking.

You are Our Listener – and Our Friend. You Are An Individual – and you deserve to be treated as such.

After nearly 4 years since we started this project, and over 18 months of 7-days-a-week working in the studio,last days last days is in the final (really final) stages of mastering.

Here’s a pretty picture of what the music looks like.

Oooooo. Look at all the pretty colors.

So… what the hell is taking us so long? And why are we being so damned quiet & secretive?

Well… there’s more going on than just releasing this album.

We have… Plans. Crazy Plans.

And these crazy plans require money – which, of course, we don’t have. (another cultural landslide ≠ $. Or ¢, for that matter.)

So, we’re waiting until the Feds send us our tax refund – which means our release date will now be in February – because we want to do this crazy plan Right.

We want to do something Different. (Just like our music.)

And this will be… Different. (And it’ll probably get us in trouble, too. What the hell.)

And, as always, it will be totally free. No bullshit email exchanges or crap like that.

Free.

Music is a gift, and we’re just happy to share our music with you. That’s been our story for over ten years, and we’re stickin’ to it.

So, Big Doings in February.

This time for sure.

k&w 😉

P.S. SPOILER ALERT: Okay… if you really, really can’t wait (you’re one of those people who see wrapped packages under the Christmas tree as a form of cruel & unusual punishment), and you’d really like a hint of what to expect, the sneaky test/preview/premastered version of last days last days is still available, and can be found here…and as usual, it’s Free.

Be aware that much has changed since this test release, that the upcoming mastered versions are much, much better – and like all the demo EP’s we’ve released while we’ve been producing last days last days, this will disappear. Soon. And forever. (We post these imperfect things because we always want you involved in what we do; we listen to your feedback – and we really love having you along for the ride. 😉 )k&w

We finally received the funds from Paypal for our Aurora Shooting Benefit (they probabaly couldn’t believe we actually made money – and hell, we’d have problems believing that ourselves), so we were finally able to send that out:

We’d like to thank you all for making this happen (and personal emails will be heading out shortly, too).

And we’re still mixing last days last days; we hit a small snag when kirk’s day-job had a brainstorm in mid-July:

“Hey, wouldn’t it be really great to do something impossible in 45 days?”

“Yeah! And let’s get kirk to do it! He can work seven days a week & live in the parking garage! He’ll be sweating all the time so he won’t need showers – and we can feed him all that left-over cat food we found in the closet a year ago!”

“And if wife complains, we’ll send him home for a couple of hours before we drag his chain back.”

“Wow! That’s a great idea!”

(By the way, the preceding dialogue is not from an imaginary conversation.)

Anyway, when they loosen the chain slightly, we get to mix. And then we make some progress – until they yank that chain.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

So… we’re still mixing. And we WILL finish this album.

And the wait WILL be worth it.

We just wish they’d bought year-old Tender Vittles instead of that canned fishy stuff. The little bones stick in his teeth and the dog keeps trying to clean his face.

Let’s be honest – we’re complete doofuses at web design… but this WordPress set-up beats the hell out of the stupid construction page we’ve had up for the last 18 months.

Okay – so, umm, Howdy.

Here’s the latest news:

1. We’re FINALLY mixing last days last days – y’know, that album we’ve been working on (amidst various other projects) for the last 3+ years; 7-days-a-week since July 23rd of last year (tomorrow will be the one full year anniversary of nothing but wake-up/go-to-day-job/come-home/record last days last days/fall over/rinse, lather, repeat)…

..so, with any luck, IT WILL BE OUT SOON. VERY SOON.

Really.

This Time For Sure.

2. We’ve just released a brand new first-mix track from last days last days as a benefit for the Colorado Organization For Victim Assistance, who have been asked by the Aurora, Colorado PD to handle victim assistance for those harmed in the horrific July 19th/20th shooting incident there.

This is a big deal to us – but rather than reiterate something we’ve already written about in great detail, please go to our music page (which is temporarily our Bandcamp page) and find out how You can help people who are in need. And we thank you in advance for checking it out. (It’s really worth it.)

3. We still don’t have our site fully functional (we’d like to finish last days last days first), but we HAVE aggregated some of our feeds:

• If you want to see our Twitter Feed (we’re most active there) you can now go to tweets.anothercultland.com and see them all in one spot! (Courtesy of Twylah, one of the niftiest ideas in years.)

• Our most recent music (hey, it does exist) is at music.anothercultland.com (Bandcamp) and of course all of our music (well… what we’ll admit to, or have permission to post) can be found at our longtime home on alonetone, where you’ll find lots of other nifty music and a fine community as well. We’re still working on remastering & posting our entire back catalog on our site – this one you’re on right now – but that has to wait until we finish last days last days…

• And of course you can follow us on Twitter (@anothercultland) and Facebook. (We’ll try to keep the Facebook page more active – once we finish last days last days… hey, are you sensing a theme here?)

4. And then there’s this:

Oooo! Ahhhh!

Yes. We have our own label, and now it’s affiliated with the wonderfully anarchic Any And All Records! (Be sure to check out our label-mates right here.)

Of course, there’s more news – but that will have to wait until… well, by now you should be able to fill in the rest of the sentence right here: _______________________

And with that, it’s time to get back to work. This album ain’t gonna mix itself – although we’d be really grateful if it did. (We keep hoping one morning we’ll wake up, come upstairs to the studio – and all the Little Mixing Elves will have been here, done their magic, and the album will be done! But… sad to say, those little buggers haven’t shown up yet. Or they snuck into the studio, saw what we were doing, and ran screaming into the night.)